Chaos (Guards of the Shadowlands Book 3), Page 3

  “Are you sure you can’t come with us?” I asked.

  Michael opened his mouth to answer, but Raphael interrupted. “He can’t. Neither of us can. The Judge’s promises are never broken.”

  “Doesn’t mean we wouldn’t like to,” Michael growled, gripping the handle of his hammer with his meaty fingers. He glared at me with red-rimmed eyes. “You get him out, you understand me? He doesn’t deserve this.”

  “This isn’t about deserving,” Raphael said. His voice was gentle, though. “You know that.”

  Ana emerged from the aisle, her hood pulled back from her face. “If it was, Takeshi wouldn’t have been there in the first place.”

  “Too right,” Michael said, shaking his head.

  Raphael held out a pair of boots to her and watched as both of us pulled our footgear on. “You will not need to eat while you are inside. You don’t belong there, and nothing in the city will nourish you.”

  “But does that mean—?”

  He nodded as he met my eyes. “Like your time in the dark city, you will grow weaker the longer you are inside. You won’t die, but you won’t be as strong as you are now. And if they kill you, you will become part of the city, and it will be easier for them to control you. Do not allow this to happen.”

  “Work fast and don’t die,” Ana summed up. “Generally good advice.”

  “Are you ready?” Raphael asked.

  I looked over at Ana, my new Captain. Her determination was written on her face, blazing and fierce. She had the same reason I did for walking into that hell, and that love would drive her as far as she needed to go. “We’re ready,” she said.

  Raphael placed his burning hands on the backs of our necks. Right before we disappeared, I saw Michael’s fury fall away like a mask, and in that moment I knew the truth, and it sliced through my body with icy dread.

  He didn’t think we were coming back.

  My boots hit the ground, and I stumbled, crashing into a hard surface and bouncing off. Crouching, I ripped my hood away from my face, my hair flying out around me in crazy, flyaway curls. Dull orange light reflected off the wall in front of me, and I blinked as my eyes adjusted to the dim twilight. In front of me was a smooth surface, like a bubble with thick, hard skin that swirled lazily with an oily prism of colors. In it, my own face was reflected, my amber-brown eyes wide and haunted, my dark hair bouncing around my face. The cloak flapped around me as I pressed my hands to the dome, which emerged from the sand and rose so high I could barely make out the curve as it arced over the city. Even through my gloves, I could feel it pulsing with the misery inside, and I closed my eyes for a moment and absorbed it. Malachi was in there. I was closer to him now, and that thought was enough to raise the tiny hairs on the back of my neck. Somewhere in this walled city, the Mazikin had him. Naked, Ana had said, and scared. Furious, I slammed both my fists against the dome with all my strength. The impact shuddered up my arms and knocked the breath out of me. The steel shot in my gloves protected my knuckles from splitting, but the barrier hadn’t dented or cracked.

  “It’s to keep them inside,” Raphael said. He stood behind us, looking small and insignificant, one man surrounded by a sea of sand bounded by two mountain ranges, with the orange glow of the morning horizon behind him. “I will create an opening when you’re ready to go inside, and I’ll be waiting to let you out.”

  “If we complete the mission, you mean,” Ana said. She had her face mashed against the dome, peering inside.

  “That’s correct,” Raphael answered. “If you succeed. You have to make it back to the gates and out of the city. I can’t come in to get you.”

  I watched him for a moment, looking for some flicker of feeling in his light-gray eyes, some hint as to whether he thought we’d actually make it out. But as emotional as Michael had been, Raphael was the opposite. He stared steadily back at me with what appeared to be only mild curiosity. I turned from him and squinted, trying to see through the dome. Beyond its thick barrier were dark, pitted bricks, black mortar binding them together.

  “Like many of the realms within the Shadowlands, it’s a walled city,” Raphael said.

  “Why the wall, if they have an impenetrable dome?”

  “So they can control the entrance to the city.” Ana tugged at my sleeve and began to walk along the edge of the dome like she knew where she was going. Cold sweat prickled over my scalp as I followed, my soft-soled boots sinking in the loose sand. A stiff gust of wind sent the diamond-hard grains pelting against my cloak and the side of my face.

  Raphael pointed to the dome. “We’re next to the gates.”

  “There they are,” Ana whispered as she pushed her face close to the dome’s reflective surface again.

  I cupped my hands around my eyes and leaned in. In front of us were high, heavy gates, twisted metal with jagged spikes jutting out at odd angles.

  They were open. Two creatures stood on either side of them, upright but definitely not human. They were clothed in what looked like the same leather we were wearing, including cloaks with hoods. The tan material hung over their powerful bodies, broad barrel chests, and thick necks. They had humanlike hands and booted feet instead of paws, but in place of fingernails, curled black claws sprouted from each fingertip. Their faces were covered in short, dusky brown fur, and their eyes were solid black marbles, round and shining with an eager, cruel sort of mischief. They had rounded ears on the tops of their heads, and blunt black snouts. Their mouths were ridged with gleaming fangs, and threads of saliva stretched thin as they grinned.

  The two of them paced back and forth on all fours, then rose to their hind legs, their ears twitching as they looked at the surface of the dome and conversed. It was all wrong—they were too human to be animals and too animal to be people. They looked like hyena-human hybrids.

  “The Mazikin,” I whispered. These were the things that forced themselves inside human bodies, that took them over. This was what Juri, Malachi’s sworn enemy and the being who had haunted me for the longest time, looked like in his true form. I’d always pictured him as human, despite the fact that he behaved like a depraved animal, but now it was clear that was exactly what he was.

  “That’s them,” Ana said, impatience creeping into her voice. “But look.” She jabbed her finger into the unyielding surface of the dome.

  In front of the gates, people kept appearing out of nowhere, sprawled in the sand on hands and knees, naked and trembling. One woman was curled into a ball, her head tucked against her knees, like she was trying to avoid acknowledging where she was before the inevitable caught up with her. A Mazikin guard grabbed a leather garment from a large pile by the gates and tossed it at her. When it hit her, she frantically pulled it on, but as soon as she did, the Mazikin grasped a handful of her hair and yanked her head up. Then it leaned into her face and said something. The woman, her eyes open and helpless, her face slack, nodded in this pathetic, defeated way, then got to her feet and trudged toward the gates. Two other naked humans appeared out of thin air a second later, shaking and blinking.

  I turned to Ana. “These people are materializing, like new arrivals at the Suicide Gates. You said Malachi fell out of a hole in the sky.”

  “He did.”

  “Those people died inside the Mazikin city,” Raphael said. “They aren’t recently possessed.”

  “So if you die, you end up back at their gates. Just like in the dark city. Except you’re naked.” The anger twisted inside of me. It was like this place had been designed to humiliate. To oppress. I hated the looks on those people’s faces and had to turn away to keep myself from punching the dome again.

  Raphael’s eyes were also on the hunched bare backs of the humans inside the dome. “Yes.”

  So there was no escape. Ever. My chest aching, I watched as a few more people appeared in front of the gates and were herded back inside. The Mazikin cheerfully shoved the hum
ans over the threshold of the city, some of them to the left, some to the right, like they knew exactly which way each person should go.

  “How are we going to get in?” I asked, my voice trembling. This was it. Was I ready? Was I strong enough?

  I had to be. Ana and I were the only rescue squad available.

  “They’ll see us come in,” Ana said. “The crowd isn’t big enough for them not to notice us crawling through the opening you make.”

  “Have a little faith,” said Raphael. “I’ll get you in without incident. Once I do that, though, you’re on your own.” My heart stopped as his voice hitched, catching on those final words. Somehow, that tiny emotional breach was worse than Michael’s red-rimmed eyes and roared curses.

  I stepped back from the dome. “Be honest with us. Is this possible? Or is this a suicide mission?”

  I expected him to smile calmly and repeat his standard reply, that I didn’t need to know. But his freckled face was arranged in a very strange expression: part pity, part sadness, part uncertainty. And then he looked up at the sky, closed his eyes, and drew in a breath. It was the most human thing I’d ever seen him do.

  “If anyone can complete this mission successfully, the two of you can,” he said as he opened his eyes and turned to the orange glow at the horizon. He stared without blinking at the thin strip of flame forming as the sun began to rise from the sand. “You have everything you need. It is only a question of will and gut, and of the choices you make.”

  I turned to Ana. “Say the word, Captain.”

  Her dark eyes met mine. “Fast and focused, Lieutenant. We go in, get our men, destroy the portal and the Queen, and get out.”

  I nodded and put my hands on my thighs, feeling for the blades through the thick material of my cloak. Malachi had trained me well. I knew how to survive. How to kill. How to endure. And I knew what I wanted. Him. Only him. “Let’s go.”

  Faint lines creased the corners of Raphael’s mouth as he turned away from the rising sun, his gray eyes now blazing with an oddly orange tint. “Very well. When I give the signal, dive for the sand. And good luck.”

  He spread his arms, and twin balls of bright-yellow fire formed on his palms, like two tiny suns. I spun around, facing the dome. I watched his reflection as he lifted his head, his eyes still glowing, and hurled the balls of flame into the air. They hit the dome with a deafening explosion, right over the Mazikin guards. Their heads jerked up, their mouths wide and snarling; at the same time Raphael’s hand reached between Ana and me. He drew his finger across the dome, then grabbed at its surface. It crumpled and tore like paper, letting the cool, fetid air of the Mazikin city rush out.

  I dove through the window he created, landing in a heap a few feet away from the edge of the dome. I scooted toward the center of the sand as the Mazikin hooted and growled, their attention riveted on the dome above them. A muffled crack and a blinding light made me duck my head. Probably more balls of flame to keep them distracted. Ana grunted as she hit the sand next to me, spraying the yellow-gray granules across the tops of my gloved hands.

  I turned my head in time to see Raphael’s face through the opening of the dome, the night-blue sky behind him, wide and endless, the sun a half circle on the horizon. He nodded at me, then swiped his hand across the dome once more. Shutting us in.

  He disappeared, and all I could see was my own ashen face reflected in the wall of my new prison. My fingers dug into the sand.

  The Mazikin were still growling at each other, their shoulders drawn up and their claws twitching.

  “They’re nervous. Never seen anything like that,” Ana whispered as we scrambled to join the small crowd of clothed humans huddled next to the Mazikin guards. She cursed. “They’re saying they should report it.”

  “You can understand them?” I muttered softly as we pressed ourselves in among the others. Then I realized that made sense, because Malachi could understand them, too, after decades of eavesdropping on them in the dark city.

  If she answered, I didn’t hear. Because that was the moment when the Mazikin grabbed my hair and wrenched my head up. His black-marble eyes gazed deep into mine. His rotten-meat breath fanned across my face. I gagged and tried to turn my head away, but he only leaned closer, nuzzling his warm, wet snout along my cheek. “Ah,” he sighed. “English?”

  His black-lipped smile glistened when he saw the recognition on my face. An involuntary sound of disgust squeaked from my throat as he drew his tongue across my forehead. “These two must be straight from the Queen’s dinner hall,” the other Mazikin said. “They smell delicious.”

  Somehow I knew he was speaking English because he wanted us to be scared. The Mazikin stationed at the gates probably knew several languages, to help them terrorize efficiently. And it was working. The Mazikin holding me nodded, still looking in my eyes. He grunted at his friend, who was holding Ana in a similar grip. Then they shoved us toward the open gates. My elbows hit the sand as I fell, but all I felt was relief. They were herding us into the city, as we’d hoped.

  Ana didn’t appear to agree with my rosy assessment of our situation. Crawling forward on her hands and knees, she grumbled under her breath as we drew even with the city gates.

  “What is it?” I whispered as we inched toward a huge cart crammed with a few dozen cloaked women, all wearing completely defeated expressions. The Mazikin standing next to the vehicle were watching us, clearly expecting us to climb aboard.

  “The Mazikin guards have pronounced us edible,” she said quietly. “We’re being taken straight to the meat factory.”

  FOUR

  “I THOUGHT THEY ATE goats!” My heart thrummed as I stared up at the waiting Mazikin. They were using canes tipped with metal hooks to poke at the whimpering women inside the cart. Their yellow-white fangs flashed as they snarled at their victims.

  “Either there weren’t enough or their tastes have expanded,” said Ana.

  We were only a few yards from the cart now, still on our hands and knees in the middle of a small square. Three crumbling roads led away from the city gates. A similar cart, this one holding several gray-faced men, was sitting on the other side of the square, near a road that ran right along the wall. In the distance, high smokestacks belched black plumes that curled in wisps as they hit the top of the dome. The faint clamor of industrial machinery reached my ears over the sounds of human suffering in the square. There was some type of factory up there, and my guess was that the men were the labor force.

  On Earth, the Mazikin had been most fond of the night, and now day was breaking. Here, all the Mazikin in the square were growling impatiently at their human charges and glancing over their shoulders as the sun, the only thing visible through the dome, peeked over the bricks of the wall behind us.

  I sucked in a breath of cool, moist air that left a sour taste on my tongue. The smell of this place was incredibly bad: rotten eggs, acrid smoke, and raw sewage. “Orders?” I asked, hoping Ana had a brilliant plan that did not involve becoming a nice flank steak.

  “We get in that cart,” she said, leaning close and speaking directly in my ear as we inched forward. “I think we’re going to have a chance to get away when the sun gets higher, but if we try it now, the entire city will know we’re here. They’re already on guard because of Raphael’s fireball-juggling act. Don’t do anything to draw attention to yourself.”

  I tugged my hood low over my face as I reached the boots of the Mazikin waiting at the cart. Mazikin feet were broader than human feet, and their knees seemed to bend backward—much like a dog’s. Still, they alternated between standing on their hind legs and running around on all fours. They also had no trouble kicking—my captor’s boot made a firm connection with my ribs. “Up,” he snarled.

  I let out a pathetic whimper and obeyed, despite my desire to whip out one of my knives and get to work. Ana was right—this seemed like the quickest way to get deeper into
the city. Closer to Malachi, wherever he was. As convenient as it would have been, I’d known he probably wasn’t hanging out right next to the exit to the city.

  The cart rattled as Ana and I climbed aboard. It was powered by a huge clunky exposed engine at the front with crazy coils of pipe and gauges sticking out at seemingly random places. It sputtered as the Mazikin driver twisted a key in the ignition, making the vehicle shudder and creak. The woman squatting next to me wrapped her skinny fingers over the metal edge of the cart, as did the woman on her other side. They bowed their heads, waiting. I bowed my head in imitation, then jerked it up when I felt a sharp jab in my shoulder.

  A Mazikin was standing right in front of me. “Hands out!” he barked, then repeated the command in a few other languages. Like all the others, I wrapped my fingers over the metal wall of the cart, waiting for him to notice I was wearing gloves and preparing to punch my fist right through his face if he made a move. But he barely looked at me. All he seemed to care about was getting the job done. He flicked an irritated glance at the rising sun, and with quick, practiced movements, snapped a metal cuff onto my wrist. I flinched back out of sheer reflex, but not fast enough to keep my other wrist from being captured. Without looking at my face, the Mazikin fastened the cuffs, connected by a rusting chain, to a metal ring on the floor of the cart. Two other Mazikin were doing the same thing to the other captives, none of whom resisted. I met Ana’s eyes and saw a flicker of uneasiness.

  Chained inside the mechanized cart, squatting on the floor, shoulder to shoulder with Ana and a bunch of other women, I tensed as we lurched into motion. The woman next to me, her hood covering her face, sniffled and sobbed. “Oh God,” she whispered over and over again, and I couldn’t help but picture her prayer rising high in the air . . . and then hitting the dome and falling, unheard, to the dirty streets below.